Mic Wright is a journalist specialising in technology, music and popular culture. He lives in Dublin.

Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi: a fond farewell to the man who built Mario's world

Nintendo had a life before the Gameboy. Before Donkey Kong, before Mario, there were card games. Hiroshi Yamauchi (above) who died yesterday, aged 85, was the man who recreated the brand. The great-grandson of Nintendo’s founder, he led the company from 1949 to 2002, a 53-year run in which he helped build the gaming world we take for granted.

At the time of his death, Yamauchi was still Nintendo’s second-largest shareholder with 10 per cent of its stock, according to data put together by Bloomberg. In recent years, Nintendo has struggled to compete with Sony and Microsoft whose PlayStation and XBox consoles have increased their stranglehold on the market. While the Nintendo Wii was an incredible success, its successor, the Wii U has not replicated that. Nintendo has struggled to come to terms with a world in which casual gamers using tablets and mobile phones have eroded their position.

Yamauchi was ranked Japan’s richest man by Forbes Asia in 2008 with a net worth of $7.8 billion – but his wealth was hit by the company’s dipping fortunes. It will not have shocked him or made him feel Nintendo was doomed. When he succeeded to head the company in 1949, it was on the cusp of bankruptcy after misguided attempts to expand from selling traditional Japanese card games. His father had tried to hawk toy guns, baby carriages and fast food, all without success.

Yamauchi learned from that experience and refused to allow the company to take loans or other forms of capital to fund its future. Even now, a decade after he stepped down as CEO, the company retains $8.7 billion in cash and equivalent holdings. It is that war chest that will help the company reinvest in R&D and, with any luck, find a way out of its current doldrums.

The underpinning of Yamauchi’s business philosophy was simple: the quality of a video game was more important than the hardware you play them on. His greatest move in executing that was hiring Shigeru Miyamoto, a genius game designer who went on to develop Mario the plumber, Donkey Kong and Link, the hero of the Zelda titles.

In 1980, Nintendo released the Game & Watch – still considered a classic by game collectors. The world’s first hand-held gaming device. Then came the Famicom in 1983, the company’s first home video game system. Things really took off with the arrival of Super Mario Bros in 1985 and a rebranding that brought Famicom to the US and Europe as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

Yamauchi led a long and fruitful life, building a modern company from an already ageing corporation that could have faded into obscurity just as he took control. The Nintendo of Mario only exists because of Yamauchi. The tech and worlds have been home to many noisy, boastful revolutionaries. A product of his culture and time, Yamauchi was not one of them. Quietly, meticulously, he changed the world and brought untold joy to children of all ages.